230 



DISEASES OF POULTRY. 



Washington, D. C. died from this disease; nearly 

 eighty hens and pullets were lost on a farm at Tackett 

 Mills, Va. ; about fifty-five out of seventy died in a 

 flock, on Block Island ; fifty old hens died on a farm in 

 Maryland near Washington ; and several thousand 

 small chickens died in a broiler -raising establishment 

 in the same section. 

 These instances are 

 mentioned to show 

 the destructiveness 

 of the disease under 

 conditions favorable 

 to its propagation. 

 The germ can not be 

 considered a very 

 virulent one, how- 

 ever, and, as sug- 

 gested by Moore, 

 the outbreaks ap- 

 pear to occur where 

 the requirements of ^^^ 71 . 

 ordinary hygiene 

 are not strictly complied with. In other words, this 

 malady may be looked upon as a filth disease, and as 

 the germ resembles in some respects the common 

 intestinal germ known as the Bacillus coli communis^ 

 it is not improbable that outbreaks may occur from 

 filth without the necessity of importing the contagion 

 upon a premises. In the brooder -houses above re- 

 ferred to, the brooders were not bedded with sand as 

 they should be, but the chicks were placed directly 

 upon the wooden floors, which became saturated with 

 the droppings. In the high temperature necessarily 

 maintained in the brooders, the decomposition of such 



-Bactei mmsangninaiium in capillary 

 of fowl's liver, (magnified 3,0U0 diameters. ) 



